The purification of blood externally of a living patient is a medical practice used in the treatment of certain liver disorders, immune complex diseases, hematological disorders, neurologic diseases, transplant rejection and malignancies. For example, it is a practice today in the treatment of the above diseases to withdraw blood from one arm of a patient, to feed the blood into a processor which separates the red blood cells from other constituents of the blood by means of a centrifuge, and to return the red blood cells to the patient via his other arm. An example of the apparatus conventional in such an operation is the IBM Model 2997 Cell Processor. Other examples are the Fenwal CS 3000 System manufactured by Fenwal Laboratories, division of Travend Laboratories, of Deerfield, Ill., and the Haemonet ics, Model 30, manufactured by Heamonet ics Corporation of Braintree, Mass.
Filters commonly referred to as "cylinders" or "columns" have in the past been attached into the tubes of cell processors as described above for the purpose of performing an operation on the blood passing through the cylinder. These known prior devices customarily employ coated glass or plastic beads to assist in the removal of cells and/or plasma components through a process of adsorption. One such unit, by way of example, is the heparin-agarose column made by Dr. A. A. Pineda of the Mayo Clinic. Such columns, though relatively ineffective, have been utilized in an attempt to remove cholesterol from the blood.
In addition, experiments have been conducted on the ex vivo removal of lymphocytes in the laboratory. These laboratory experiments generally involve the problems of unsecured beads which cannot be returned to a human body because the probability of embolization with disastrous results to the patient would be unacceptably high. Another problem associated with the laboratory techniques is the processing time. For example, the rate of flow through the filter must be sufficient to keep the patient alive, i.e. the blood cannot be removed from a patient, processed, and then returned to him after any considerable delay.
Still another problem associated with the laboratory techniques is the low rate of efficiency of the antigen-antibody interaction.
A further problem involves damage to the blood as a result of the impact thereof upon a rigid cylinder or column in the processing operations. The known columns used in such laboratory experiments are made of glass and/or stainless steel.
Additional problems include non-specific absorption by column materials of cells or of plasma components of the blood which it is desirable to return to the patient.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to obviate many of the problems described above and to provide a novel method and apparatus for the selective removal of blood constituents.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel method and apparatus for the selective removal of blood constituents such as lymphocytes, lymphocyte subsets, antigen-antibody complexes, immunoglobulins and immunoglobulin subclasses on a highly selective basis.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a novel method and apparatus for the selective removal of constituents of blood with a significantly decreased processing time.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a novel method and apparatus for the highly selective removal of constituents from blood which is significantly less damaging to the blood constituents returned to the patient.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method and apparatus for the selective removal of blood constituents in which the probability of problems related to constituent materials is significantly reduced.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a novel fiber for use in the removal of blood constituents.
Yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a novel set of constituent antibody and antibody materials membrane fragments and receptors, useful for diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of diseases and in the selective removal of blood constituents.
These and other objects and advantages will be readily apparent from the claims when considered in connection with the following detailed description and appended drawings.